[Please Note: While on our vacation (through 11/19), I am blogging mostly about our travels and sharing photos. When we return, I will get back to my usual “finds”- I promise!]
Ten years ago today, Neal and I were married on a very rainy (we know, “lucky”,) day in Brooklyn, NY. Guests still remark on the lovely venue and delicious food. It seems hard to believe that 10 years has passed. In that time, we sold our first home and bought our second. We moved from Brooklyn to Chicago (and are almost “Midwest nice” now.) We changed jobs 7 times between us. We lost my dad, Neal’s 3 remaining grandparents, his step-brother Jeff and step-niece Rainn. We gained a nephew, Charlie, (many nieces and nephews to whom we are honorary “aunt and uncle”) and countless friends. We kept up our passions by running nearly 20,000 miles (Erica) and car racing over 15,000 miles (Neal). We visited 3 new continents and over a dozen countries. We have been unbelievably fortunate despite the economic downturn. We have turned some of our dreams into realities and continue to pursue others.
Our marriage is not always easy as we are very different people with very different temperments, but we forgive each other’s idiosyncrasies (and acknowledge that we will often drive each other just a wee bit crazy.) With that being said, I feel unbelievably lucky to have met and married Neal. [I forgot to pack a card, so if you are reading this, Neal…thank you for the best 10 years of my life and I look forward to the next 10 and the 10 after that… And so on…]
So back to our trip… We enjoyed a day in Franschhoek with a delicious meal at La Petite Ferme (thanks to Kim, Lauren and others for the recommendation!) and visited two recommended wineries, Glenwood and Stony Brook. The settings were beautiful and we found several wines we loved. It is very inexpensive to buy wine here, but very expensive to ship it. We enjoyed some wine and got the name of the importer for Stony Brook (he is in Chicago – yay!) We relaxed and had a nice dinner at our hotel and called it a day.
The last leg of our trip is at Simbambili Lodge in the Sabi Sand Game Reserve at Kruger National Park. We flew in and learned that it is a 3 hour drive. When we arrived, we were just in time for the evening safari, so we jumped on board and hit it big. We saw elephants (with a 3 day old baby!), a leopard, a giraffe, many impala, hippos, eagles and other birds and more. We met some nice people from the UK, Switzerland and Italy and enjoyed our first brei (BBQ).
Thursday morning, we saw more giraffes and then 4 lions sunning themselves near a watering hole full of hippos.
The evening drive was much more adventurous as we drove through the bush (no road) in search of the elusive “white” rhino. We found him and visited with the lions, hippos, kudo, the leopard and many more. Amazing!
Here are some photos:
View from Franschhoek Pass
View from La Petite Ferme
Neal being Neal
Elephants with a 3 day old baby!
Giraffe
Female leopard
Wild dog puppies (eating)
Hipstamatic lions!
The “granny” lion with other female lions
Tough day!
The elusive rhino!
Please don’t charge!
Happy safari-goers (self portrait)
Mama and baby leopard
Mama leopard relaxes in a tree!
We are nearing the end of our trip and the end of my “finding” hiatus. Thank you for indulging me (and Neal) and for letting us share some of our highlights while we were away. Be back next week with usual finds and normal stuff. I hope that you’ve enjoyed this little diversion…and if you have found anything new while we were gone, please let me know!